In response to Wasserman Schultz's "death trap" cant, Weigel digs up a quote of hers at the time of the Tucson shooting:
I think we need to be leaders by example, and when we do that, then hopefully we're gonna be able to push the shock jocks and others outside our process to take a page from our book. And if we have a more productive civil discourse, then we can really live up to President Obama's words and Christina Taylor Green's dreams, her expectations for our democracy.
"This [Ryan] plan would literally be a death trap for seniors,” – incoming DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
So the response to the "death panels" is a "death trap". Makes you see what Matt Miller was talking about.
(A glossary of Dish awards can be found here. Reader suggestions and nominations in all categories are always welcome.)
Only weeks after Tucson, you get posters in Wisconsin like this one:
More here. Have we learned nothing?
And, yes, the Dish has not been focused on the events in Wisconsin. Trying to understand the multiple revolts in the Middle East has been hard enough. Getting up to speed on the complex partisan arguments in one state in the Middle West at the same time is beyond me. Megan's take is here. Matt Cooper adds some context here.
"In my original post, I referred to Herman Cain and other black conservatives as 'race minstrels' and 'mascots' for the White conservative imagination. I stand by this observation," – Chauncey DeVega, Alternet.
Amy Davidson tacks an amendment onto Godwin's law – which Steve Cohen violated:
It is not as though we lack opportunities to talk about what Nazis and Nazism mean in the contemporary world; one shouldn’t simply put them in a box marked “unique” and never apply the lessons of their period to anything—after all that suffering, to learn nothing. (For that matter, we aren’t even done with accusations of Nazism in the proper-noun sense: see the trial of John Demjanjuk—yes, he’s still alive—which is continuing on a troubling course in Germany; an additional indictment was filed against him in Spain just yesterday.) But one shouldn’t be silly about it, or else one should be frankly silly—surreal, even—as with the Soup Nazi or the brilliant and illuminating “Downfall” parodies that have populated YouTube. That sort of thing is not only harmless, but valuable—a humane expression of our engagement with our past and future, and with each other. Unfortunately, the only parody Cohen managed was unintentional self-parody.
"[Republicans] say it's a government takeover of health care – a big lie, just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust," – Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN). And he's not backing down.
by Patrick Appel
John Cole protests his nomination:
Do you think they understood the point of my post last night? Like, for example, the people on “teh left” who are all nominated for awards are basically folks with no institutional power, and whose grave sins range from saying fuck too much and pointing out that wingnuts are crazy? That it is absurd to equate a bunch of slightly obnoxious comments from random bloggers to the Malkin awards, which is a list of individuals who make up the institutional right. When was the last time Digby was on television? Or Tbogg? Or Amanda Marcotte? Do they understand that Markos is essentially blacklisted from NBC?
Do they even understand the concept of false equivalence?
The Dish spent much more time this year tracking vitriolic right-wing rhetoric than left-wing rhetoric. I went through all of this year's nominees and there were roughly ten times as many Malkin nominees as Moore nominees. And don't forget that there is a second category for right-wing bile – the Hewitt Award. If there wasn't an award for extreme left-wing vindictiveness, the contrast between left and right Cole fixates on wouldn't be evident. And while I agree that this year's Malkin nominees are generally more extreme than the Moore nominees, that doesn't make the Moore nominees defensible. The Dish isn't going to shy away from pointing out liberal intemperateness and divisiveness just because the other side is currently worse.
Wishing death upon your political enemies isn't kosher –even if your words are dripping with sarcasm, you're riffing off an old Dave Weigel quote, and you're targeting someone as loathsome as Bill Kristol. Is that such a crazy standard to keep?
by Patrick Appel
"I’m proposing that pretty much every one do what I’m about to do, which is to suggest that I think we all agree the world would be a much better place if Bill Kristol was dead," – John Cole, Balloon Juice.
TBogg is stuffing the ballot box for himself. Vote on this year's nominees here.
Kornacki pushes back against his nomination.
"So when [Alabama Congressman Jo] Bonner launches a very public, very unnecessary attack on a black Democrat from Harlem, it's worth keeping in mind the effect it's likely to have on more than a few voters back home," – Steve Kornacki, suggesting that the grandstanding of the GOP's ranking member on the ethics committee was fueled by racism and not Rangel's eleven ethics violations.
The Dish 